Fox Covert Early Years Centre officially declared open today

The Edinburgh Reporter visited Fox Covert Early Years Centre this morning to see the transformed surroundings now available to nursery school children in the area. This is a purpose built nursery in the grounds of the Fox Covert Primary School and it is a lovely space both indoors and outdoors.

Early years staff and council designers have worked together to provide a nurturing and natural environment. Research has shown that young children respond positively to natural colours and materials and this has influenced the design of the new nurseries.

The one thing that struck us most was that the council have commissioned the Grassmarket Project to build some lovely durable wooden furniture and play things like cookers and washing machines. As ever the craftsman at the project have created something beautiful out of wood, some of which has come from the council’s parks. North Lanarkshire Industries have supplied the natural fabrics for upholstered items throughout the building.

It is a new building designed for ease of use and has sliding doors to provide views and natural light while allowing the children to go and play outdoors in the garden very easily too.

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The Edinburgh Reporter NEWS Fox Covert Nursery from Phyllis Stephen on Vimeo.

As explained in May this year the council has plans to extend its nursery provision across the city with £4.2m of further investment. This includes replacing facilities at Ferryhill Primary School and Tynecastle Nursery which will both have more room for pupils, and a permanent replacement nursery at Leith Primary School and improvements to Blackhall Nursery. In total 10 nurseries will be replaced or extended.

A previous investment of £5.7m was spent on

With a rising birth rate and continuing rising rolls in Edinburgh, the council has been busy planning the expansion of the buildings which it owns to meet the growing demand for nursery places.

The Children and Young People’s Act (2014) also increased the number of hours of early learning and childcare to 600 hours for all 3 and 4 year olds and introduced nursery places for eligible 2 year olds for the first time.

Taking this into account and looking across the city to identify areas of need, the first phase of new build nurseries are ready to open in August 2015 in Duddingston, Wardie and Fox Covert. Future new builds are planned for 2016.

With ‘playzones’ for Arts & Crafts, Home Corner, Construction & Blocks, Arts & Crafts, Messy Play, Kitchen & Snacks, Outdoor Play with emphasis on large sliding doors providing views to nature, natural light and easy circulation for children to encourage outdoor play.

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rrison Construction built the new school on behalf of Hub South East Scotland, the Council’s Development Partner.